We’re asking for new supporters right now because it has become clear that we must be able to defend digital rights on a legal front, not just by way of thorough policy work and active campaigning. Just this week we saw yet another case of an arrest made for an offensive image online. The term offensive is being tied up into harassment and other laws. The cluster of these arrests shows how important it is to be able to fight these cases - like Paul Chambers and the Twitter joke trial, like Atos shutting down a forum for hundreds of disabled people - and challenge the validity of the arrests, accusations and of the laws themselves.

Unfortunately we don’t have the capacity yet to take these cases on. We need to expand to hire a legal officer who has the expertise to lead on legal work. This is why we are asking for you to take this opportunity to join ORG, if you have any concerns about the erosion of your civil liberties online.

As part of the ORGLawFund drive we’re also organising many other projects across November.

We’ll be running ‘Stop the Snoopers’ Charter’: an event co-hosted with Index on Censorship to explore the Communications Data Bill and plan joint campaign actions with civil liberties groups. Cory Doctorow will be presenting the headline speech explaining the Bill. There’ll be further presentations from civil liberties groups and technical experts, followed by workshops and group discussions. It’s a great opportunity to get involved directly in ORG’s work and learn more about the details of Government proposals for mass surveillance of the nation.

Neil Gaiman, Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross, Hugh Hancock, Becky Hogge and others have agreed to talk to ORG about their personal interest in digital rights. In a series of videos that will be released soon they encourage others to think about how your rights online are central to life. The internet is where everything takes place, dating, shopping, social interactions - and not just techies or digital rights campaigners should care about defending it.

What you can do:

Please do share, encourage others to join and even sign-up yourself if you haven’t already.

On Saturday 24th November we're running a big campaigning event on the Snooper's Charter, jointly with Index on Censorship. We're delighted that Cory Doctorow and a host of the best privacy experts will be there sharing their insights and opinions. You can get your free tickets here.

We'll be covering what's happening with proposal, why it's such a bad idea, and what we can all do about it. You'll come away with top notch, bang up to date knowledge and a bag full of ideas about how to help stop this worrying proposal becoming law.

Tickets are free! You can get them at our Eventbrite page. The event will run from 2pm until 6pm on Saturday 24th November at the Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, EC1R 3GA.

What is the Snooper's Charter?

The draft Communications Data Bill was introduced in the Queen's Speech in May 2012. It involves plans to require communications service providers (everyone from ISPs to social networks) to intercept and collect everybody’s communications data just in case it's needed later in an investigation.

The Bill would mean a substantial increase in the powers the state has to order any communications provider – whether it is an Internet Service Provider (ISP) like BT or an Internet company like Google – to collect, store and provide access to our information about our emails, online conversations and texts.

We are concerned about the way that the data is gathered and the rules governing who can access it and why. The draft Bill is problematic on both counts; we believe too much information will be collected and that there will be inadequate safeguards around access to it. That's why we've dubbed it the Snooper's Charter.

For the past few months the Bill has been scrutinised by a Joint Committee of MPs and peers. This has involved oral evidence sessions (in two of these ORG Executive Director Jim Killock gave evidence) and a call for written evidence. Transcripts of the oral evidence and the written submissions are available at the Joint Committee's website.

They are due to report back in a couple of weeks. This will go a long way to determining whether the Bill proceeds as it is, is modified or is dropped. Whatever they report back about the current Bill, the Government will no doubt be keen to continue to try to pass new surveillance laws in some form.

ORG depends on its paying supporters. If you want to help us keep fighting for digital rights, join now - for a limited time, new supporters donating at least £5 per month by direct debit will receive a free copy of Rapture of the Nerds co-authored by Cory Doctorow, a member of our Advisory Council and Charles Stross, one of ORG's founding members.

We have seen huge changes in the digital rights agenda in the last few months. Matthew Woods and Azhar Ahmed were prosecuted and sentenced for free speech on social media. BPI are increasing the number of web blocking injunctions with insufficient transparency about what will be blocked and without processes in place to remove material that no longer needs to be blocked. The pornography company Goldeneye still wish to send alleged file-sharers copyright complaints on behalf of other companies with the intention of extracting payment without a court case, a case we are preparing to contest. All of these are issues where ORG needs to be able to prepare legal briefs and intervene in the courts.

Some of the things our Legal Officer would enable us to do are:

Prepare friend of the court briefings to explain the civil liberties consequences of web blocking injuctions

Provide technical advice to the courts where proposals would be unworkable or have unforseen circumstances

Draft amendments to delete or replace misused powers, such as Section 127 A, which was used to prosecute Paul Chambers in the Twitter joke trial.

Challenge Government decisions in judicial reviews

This new capacity will enable us to build on the amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefing on the Digital Economy Act jucidical review where we explained the impact on privacy.

ORG has written to Claire Perry MP asking her to clarify a statistic about parents' use of internet controls, which she used in a Westminster Hall debate on Wednesday.

Yesterday there was a Westminster Hall debate about the responsibilities of Internet companies. You can read a transcript over at the Parliament website. Be warned - for anybody who cares about freedom of expression online, it doesn't make for particularly pleasant reading. It includes general calls for internet companies to take down offensive material, criticisms of YouTube for publishing the infamous video insulting Mohammed, and the now familiar calls for default-on network filters to protect children online.

It's useful to note that Westminster Hall debates aren't particularly formal interventions or statements of the Government's policy. They are secured by MPs who want to discuss something important to them, and can indicate MPs feelings and signal to the Government what Parliamenarians' priorities might be.

But even though it's just a Westminster Hall debate, it seemed important to note that I spotted Claire Perry MP citing a statistic that I haven't seen before, and which got my spidey senses tingling. She suggests that the number of parents installing network filters at home has dropped ten percent over the past three years, standing now at 39%.

This seemed to contradict some of the statistics I've seen from recent research such as the EU Kids Online project. They found that "54% of parents say that they block or filter websites at home or and 46% track the websites visited by their children. These findings are far higher than in Europe generally, with the UK topping the country ranking for use of filters", that "The UK is near the top of ranking of countries in terms of parents actively mediating their children’s safety."

So this afternoon I've written to Claire Perry asking her about this statistic - where it's from and what it means. You can read the letter below. We'll let you know her reply as and when we receive one.

It's an important issue, because too often we see evidence in this debate that doesn't necessarily stand up to scrutiny. For instance, the Safety Net campaign, which has led calls for default-on network filters, state that "1 in 3 10 year olds have seen pornography online (Psychologies Magazine 2010)". This is in the 'The Facts' section of their website. However, the figure comes from a chat that Psychologies magazine had with a group of 14-16 year olds in one school in London in 2010.

It's important we're dealing with robust evidence, so we are all clear the nature of the problem we're looking at. You can read our response to the Government's consultation on parental internet controls here.

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Dear Mrs Perry,

I hope this finds you well. I am writing with regard to the Westminster Hall debate you took part in yesterday. The debate focused on the responsibilities of internet companies.

We note from the transcript of the debate that you said the following:

"As a result, the proportion of parents who say they have downloaded internet controls or filtering software in households with a child aged between five and 15—remember that 95% of children live in internet-enabled households—has fallen 10 percentage points over the past three years to 39%"

We are interested in the source for this statistic. Further, we would appreciate clarification on whether this statistic implies a reduction in the number of parents who downloaded filtering software or internet controls over the course of a year, or a fall in the percentage of all households that have filtering software or internet controls installed? In short, is that figure a drop in coverage, or in uptake?

As a contribution to the debate, we note that the October 2012 publication from the EU Kids Online project, led by Professor Sonia Livingstone, found that:

"54% of parents say that they block or filter websites at home or and 46% track the websites visited by their children. These findings are far higher than in Europe generally, with the UK topping the country ranking for use of filters."

The report draws on the project researchers' pan-European survey of 25,142 children aged 9-16. The researchers also found that:

"The UK is near the top of ranking of countries in terms of parents actively mediating their children’s safety." (see page 70)

These findings appear to give a somewhat different picture to the one you presented in the debate yesterday.

Whilst of course respecting your position, we disagree with you on the question of whether a 'default-on network filter' policy is the best way to help parents manage the risks their children face online.

We wish to see this debate guided by robust evidence. This will ensure that we all understand the nature of the problem as clearly as possible, which will help us all draw more informed conclusions about the best response.

"We welcome the group's desire for evidence based policy but think this sits ill with its' call to move the Intellectual Property Office to the Department of Culture Media and Sport, which has had a dire record of inventing policy initiatives without a shred of evidence.

"Last year, we challenged in theDCMS to reveal evidence it had for various copyright enforcement initiatives it was promoting, and the department had to admit they had none.

"The IPO has done a great job of looking at copyright reform, which the report acknowledges as trying to achieve a 'balance' of competing interests. It would be wrong to move to representing only one part of this equation."

Consumer Focus have today written to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) about the way the MPAA collect evidence of copyright infringement by individuals on P2P networks. The letter relates to a presentation the MPAA gave to Consumer Focus and security expert Dr Richard Clayton (also a member of Open Rights Group's advisory council), about the process they will be using for the US' 'six strike' copyright infringement process. In his analysis, Dr Clayton found a number of issues that could lead to errors in the gathering of evidence of infringement.

This is a really important intervention. As well as being used in the US for their 'six strike' regime, the MPAA intend to use this or a similar procedure for the Digital Economy Act process here. They'll be using this method to collect evidence of copyright infringement by people in the UK.

The reason it's really important to get the evidence gathering procedure right is two-fold. First, it's difficult to make sure the process identifies the right Internet connection, to ensure that letters are only sent to subscribers whose Internet connection was actually used to infringed copyright. As we know, an IP address does not identify a computer, or even the individual who has engaged in p2p filesharing, only the Internet connection.

And we're talking about a lot of letters. It is anticipated that up to 2 million copyright infringement reports will be submitted annually by the MPAA and BPI under the Digital Economy Act 2010. Second, being on the receiving end of these letters has consequences. (This is a process set out in the Initial Obligations Code - you can read our response to the consultation on this here).

To challenge an accusation of infringement, subscribers will have to pay £20 to appeal. If a subscriber receives three letters, they will be added to a list of repeat infringers. Copyright owners can then request the details of those subscribers, at which point they could take them to court. And after 12 months, the Government can bring in further technical measures against subscribers who have received three letters or more – “technical measures” can include the slowing of an Internet connection, or possibly disconnection*.

So getting the evidence gathering process right is important to make sure that subscribers are not wrongly sent letters, and then forced to pay £20 to prove their innocence.

Dr Clayton wrote an expert report, commissioned by Consumer Focus, to guide Ofcom in the implementation of the DEAct. That was published earlier in the summer, and is available from Consumer Focus' website.

Open Rights Group were copied in to the letters sent today, so we're making them available. You can read the letter that Chief Executive of Consumer Focus Mike O'Connor CBE sent to the MPAA here, and the letter Dr Richard Clayton sent to Consumer Focus with his full analysis here.

In his new analysis of the MPAA process as it stands, Dr Clayton found some weaknesses and makes some recommendations for how to fix them. Here's a summary of some key concerns.

1. Transparency. In our response to Ofcom on their revised Initial Obligations Code, we were one of those calling for transparency of the evidence gathering process. We suggested to Ofcom that those accused of infringement 'receive all the necessary information about the means used to obtain evidence'. Dr Clayton emphasises this in his letter to Consumer Focus. He says 'It is essential that the designs of monitoring systems can be independently reviewed and that the public should have the opportunity to understand how they work and why they are capable of precisely identifying the IP address of an unauthorised uploader".

2. Hygiene checks: Dr Clayton recommends that the MPAA conducts regular hygiene checks, to ensure that its monitoring system identifies not only IP addresses correctly, but also records the time of an alleged infringement correctly. This is important, because if the time of an alleged infringement is recorded incorrectly, an ISP may identify the wrong Internet subscriber. Dr Clayton explains “Of course I accept that the system design is intended to be foolproof, and that if my comments above about hygiene are taken on board then faulty components will be rapidly identified and fixed – nevertheless, it is in my view extremely unwise to assume that a system such as this will be operated without any errors ever occurring.”

3. A 'doctrine of perfection': Dr Clayton recommends an approach where the 'failure of an ISP to match an IP address to a subscriber account at the time of an alleged infringement should trigger an investigation into the cause of the error. There may be a systematic error, and in such a case all other IP addresses harvested in the same batch should be considered unreliable as a result.'

4. Automated identification: Dr Clayton highlights the issue of automated identification of content, which is not used by the MPAA, but is used by the BPI, which also attended the meeting. Dr Clayton explains that the BPI: "told us that for music it was common to use automated identification systems – doubtless based on the type of signal processing technology that is used in products such as those marketed by Audible Magic. Unfortunately, recent events have shown that fully automated systems can make patently incorrect decisions, and you might have read of the blocking of streamed video of the Mars lander, the Hugo awards and part of the Democratic National Convention. Therefore, I would be concerned to learn that automated systems were not supplemented by manual checks."

We wondered whether the MPAA had also shared their presentation and information with DCMS, the department responsible for the Digital Economy Act, and Ofcom, who are tasked with implementing it. We asked them both, and they told us they had not been given this presentation by the MPAA - although they have been copied in to these letters as well, so they now have the analysis from Dr Clayton.

* See this blog by Francis Davey from November 2010 (yes, this has been going on that long) on what the technical measures may involve.

ORG ran two sessions this year, with Big Brother Watch, at the Lib Dem and Labour conferences. We also leafletted all three Conferences, with help from ORG and No2ID volunteers in Brighton, Manchester and Birmingham - a big thank you to everyone who helped!

At Labour's conference on 1 October, we were joined by Stella Creasy MP, Katy Clarke MP and Mike Harris, head of advocacy at Index on Censorship. Stella Creasy outlined her questions, which included:

Will it work (is it technically feasible)?

How much will it cost?

What are the alternatives?

Her concerns were essentially pragmatic. This is understandable, but ignores the fundamental right to the protection of privacy, which is alarming.

I assume that Stella Creasy and the Labour Party are uncertain or unconvinced by these arguments, but for ORG supporters, I suspect many would like to know that a future Labour government would not simply roll over for the Home Office as seemed to be the case under the last Labour administration.

The usefulness of data comes in part from its intrusiveness. So the collection and access to communications information is balanced against the fundamental right to privacy. As a start, many politicians accept that the police should have access to communications traffic data. Of course, sometimes law enforcement have had access to this data, as with phone bills.

However, at other times, as with library reading records, or who we send mail to, then the UK government has quite rightly decided that it has no such right to this kind of traffic data at all.

The correct balance is in general that data should be available to law enforcement only if it exists anyway, and then only when they have reasonable suspicion, and also when it is not linked to the content of communications. It must not cause people to limit their access to information or speech. This way, access to data is about investigation, rather than mass surveillance or control, and can be justifiable.

This approach has been severely upset by data retention laws, which require traffic data to be kept beyond their usefulness for business. Data retention has given politicians the impression that police should have a right to a record of our communications online. This makes the intellectual case for new collection powers, where that data is hard to access otherwise, seem reasonable.

However, there is pushback. Data retention has been challenged in a number of states. The latest challenge to be mounted is in Slovakia. An EU challenge is also due.

The Conservative and Lib Dem conference sessions on the CDB started much more from the point of view of these fundamental issues. All speakers acknowledged the need for lawful access, and were concerned to examine what kinds of gaps in access to data might exist, and how that might be reasonably dealt with.

For instance, companies in other countries do need to have arrangements that allow UK police to request data. These might be through agreeing to co-operate where the justification and request matches their domestic and UK law, or by international legal co-operation.

The good news is that political support outside of the Home Office seems to be pretty thin. Labour are equivocal, sensing public opposition. The Lib Dems know the Bill is bad news, and their position has hardened as the Joint Committee has looked at the CDB; Nick Clegg said he would take Julian Huppert’s advice on the issue. Many Conservatives are very skeptical, both on cost and privacy grounds.

That doesn’t mean the Bill is bound to be defeated. There are three major concerns. Firstly, the degree of wriggle room that the Joint Committee give the government. Secondly, the need that the coalition will have not to humiliate the Home Secretary Theresa May, who pushed this policy for the Home Office. Thirdly, related to this, the temptation to ‘open up RIPA’, and gamble that keeping the Bill alive could lead to a more fundamental reform including the lack of independent supervision of user data that is accessed by law enforcement today.

In general, many MPs are prone to seeing the CDB as a “technical issue” rather than a civil liberties battle. They are somewhat disconnected from the public on the topic, and need to hear more from their constituents. (This will help harden political opposition in Parliament, so please do it!)

While the Parliamentary situation is complicated, compromise and face-saving measures are temptations that must be avoided. ORG and other campaigners are clear about what we want. The Bill is a disaster, and it needs to be scrapped.

Woods' jokes were sick. Ahmed's comments were offensive. But are they really things that should be landing a person in jail?

It's sometimes said that the Internet is an unregulated wild west where anything goes. It's hard to maintain that position now. People are going to jail for telling bad jokes on the Internet. That tends to not happen to people telling bad jokes in the pub. Or on television. And I'm not saying that people in the pub or on television should be going to jail.

Section 127 (1) of the Communications Act 2003 is aimed at 'public communications networks'. And the aim it has taken is at a very broadly drawn target. What's is as alarming is that the two cases above are just the latest examples of posts on social media resulting in prosecution. The most famous was perhaps the case of Paul Chambers and the 'Twitter Joke' trial.

The consequences go further than potentially undermining the careers of famous comedians who trade on offensiveness. It reduces the available ground for the free expression of opinion and perspective for everyone.

In an environment where the law tries to rigorously enforce what some people think is offensive, the ultimate consequence is that it is harder for everyone to challenge ideas or beliefs they don't like. It is worth remembering that being offended is not a reaction that is exclusive to people you agree with. Being grossly offensive is not difficult. I'd be amazed if people supporting the prosecution of Woods or Ahmed had not managed it at some stage.

This is different from saying Woods or Ahmed were not offensive. Of course it was. They were awful, awful things to say. They shouldn't have said them.

The CPS is currently looking again at the section 127, running a series of roundtables and then, possibly, a public consultation. We'll be producing some recommedations on how to create a better and more liberal environment for freedom of expression. Funnily enough, the CPS' roundtables started this week, so they have some very fresh examples to consider. In the meantime, it's worth reading Professor Lilian Edwards' write-up of what she thinks the issue is.

Open Rights Group exists to preserve and promote your rights in the digital age. We are funded by thousands of people like you. We are based in London, United Kingdom. Open Rights is a non-profit company limited by Guarantee, registered in England and Wales no. 05581537.